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Ros Nelson supports writers who are tired of hearing their friends say, "You should write a book!"
She lives just minutes from Lake Superior – the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area – an "inland sea" with waves that can crest at over 30 feet. Lake Superior creates a mini climate, loved by fruit growers and creating "lake effect" snow.
Little Big Bay is located on Chequamegon Bay, close to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore: Little Place ~ Big Ideas ~ On the Bay.

11/05/2012

Wind in the willows? Just an hors d'oeuvre!

When I write poetry, it's pretty hard to keep the word "tree" from showing up.

Recently, when revising an earlier poem, I found that I had unwittingly created two poems, now conjoined and dissimilar, requiring a difficult surgery that I had no energy for. So, I put it aside for the moment, but here are three lines that may survive:

"My delight is with blue sky where the tree tops search for food and squint-white clouds in color-burning-out light hover in brilliance."

So, it was with delight that I found a scientist who also speaks of trees "feeding" from the air, but this man will tell you all the things that my poetry cannot!

Ask yourself this simple question. What are trees made from? From what sustenance do these robust living things – that can fall on and destroy a house (a house, not incidentally, made from a tree) – gain their mass and vitality? Surely it must be a compost so charged with nutrients as to be tree food of science fiction?

WRONG!

"People look at a tree and think it comes out of the ground, that plants grow out of the ground, but if you ask, where does the substance [of the tree] come from? You find out ... trees come out of the air!" - Nobel laureate Richard Feynman

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Wind in the willows? Just an hors d'oeuvre!

When I write poetry, it's pretty hard to keep the word "tree" from showing up.

Recently, when revising an earlier poem, I found that I had unwittingly created two poems, now conjoined and dissimilar, requiring a difficult surgery that I had no energy for. So, I put it aside for the moment, but here are three lines that may survive:

"My delight is with blue sky where the tree tops search for food and squint-white clouds in color-burning-out light hover in brilliance."

So, it was with delight that I found a scientist who also speaks of trees "feeding" from the air, but this man will tell you all the things that my poetry cannot!

Ask yourself this simple question. What are trees made from? From what sustenance do these robust living things – that can fall on and destroy a house (a house, not incidentally, made from a tree) – gain their mass and vitality? Surely it must be a compost so charged with nutrients as to be tree food of science fiction?

WRONG!

"People look at a tree and think it comes out of the ground, that plants grow out of the ground, but if you ask, where does the substance [of the tree] come from? You find out ... trees come out of the air!" - Nobel laureate Richard Feynman